Writing a Food Blog is a complete exercise in futility. The amount of work to keep you guys interested vis-a-vis pictures and recipes and writing is harder work than I ever did while actually pulling in a salary; which a Food Blog does not.

Social Media is a sham. Those who are already and have been in the spotlight through their own talents now have to hire extra staff just to Tweet and run a Facebook account and I laugh when I see titles in Eater that state @??? said …..

@? said nothing. @?’s intern may have said it or his/her assistant may have said it but there is no way it came from the mouth or hand of the account holders name. That is a laugh. Ghost writing, however, is not. There is nothing wrong with a Ghost writer who has the ability to write and tell a cohesive life story of an individual who cannot, themselves, write such a story.

I feel bad for those whose living is made on Food Television, because if you are not mentioned in any format that writes about Food for more than 3 days then your Publicist is not doing her job and her job is to make sure whether good or bad; publicity with your name attached has to be on the net somewhere.

“Chef’ is the new movie star. ‘Chef’ doesn’t really cook any more. “Chef probably forgot how to cook and all he does now is emcee cooking shows pretending to be Reality Shows. I mean, really, Around The World in 80 Plates…get real. The last time I saw Curtis Stone cooking was when he was accosting women in L A Supermarkets and taking them home to cook for their husbands…that’s a chef? Hell, if he accosted me in a Supermarket that would be the LAST thing I would want to do with him at my house…I could think of a whole lot of other stuff I would and could do with him…just not in the kitchen…actually could be in the kitchen come to think of it…

Given the look that Joe Bastianich gives each contestant on Masterchef is a sad laugh. No one can compete with Gordon Ramsay in the role of angriest and meanest man in the Food World. Thankfully those producers had the good sense to put Gordon Elliot as monkey in the middle, because he isn’t really acting he seems to be genuine. Joe – take some lessons. Your good at running successful restaurants and your newest book Restaurant Man is engaging and enlightening, but for a man who sometimes guest stars on his mother’s cooking show and never once looks up into the camera at us viewers, you are coming across as a bad actor on an audition. Or you are entirely intimidated by your mother and her presence and thus Gordon Ramsay as well.

Whether or not Restaurant Man was Ghost-written, I am in the midst of it and can’t put it down. I give him great cudos for his open-ness especially given that Lidia is reading it too. My first tattoo was done only when my Mother died because even though I was 40 at the time I would not have done it given her reaction. See, in ‘the olden days’ we kids were brought up not just to respect our parents but to instinctively know what they expected of us. Tattoos and Marijuana were two.

Good for Ottavia Bourdain. I once told Michael Ruhlman a long long time ago to get him to video his blog. To date he has done some videos and they are enjoyable and interesting that it is White on Rice who does the videography and amazing more so that I like their technique. I also told him to make himself visible in face and not just in words. Of course he won’t remember it was I who suggested it a while back and that is okay. I am sure many have told him and he gladly has done it successfully.

Ottavia Bourdain and her internet television show is what I thought would take over directly after Vlogging, years ago. She is doing it now. Good for her. Most of the young people under the age of 35 that I know only watch their computers be it television shows or YouTube videos and just like they don’t own land-line telephones and most don’t own televisions.

This must be an amazing feat to produce, direct and film. If she needs an actress, I know of someone dear to me.

Of course whether CNN will approve if she becomes popular is another story for her husband; I could see the conflict of interest, if just in the medium of how it is televised via an internet show. Can we call it an internet television show? I think we have to market a new name for such avenues that will be soon televised only on the internet.

For God’s sake Canada and the CRTC get your act together and stop banning the videos across airwaves. We can and should be allowed to watch a video posted by any of the active Networks; I promise we Canadians will still buy Cable and Bell. Well the 40+,who live in Quebec, will still buy Videotron and Bell, I think.

Although I find myself wanting to order my newspaper and magazines over the web I enjoy the feel of the hard copy so Magazines I think are here to stay especially the Gossip Magazines and the ones that I love the most which are Food Magazines.

In ‘my day’ walking the dog meant carrying many nickels to buy Kool-Aid from the kids stands but today I have to carry $2.50 to buy Energy Drinks being sold on the corner.

The times they are a changing.

One last thing take a look at this: I saw it in action at a Sushi Shop and then googled it and what a riot and laugh I got out of it. Even, apparently, rolling sushi is too difficult for the masses…. here is the home version and again I say “Only in Japan’.

I certainly can’t leave out my most favorite product that illustrates just how exactly LAZY I really am…watch with disbelief and know that without this in my repertoire of things I love and have discovered by accident I would or could not be called Natalie Luffer Sztern